★★★1/2

Director Bart Layton's follow up to his genre-defying 2012 documentary The Imposter, is a fascinating true crime thriller about four college friends who sketch out a plan to steal rare and highly valued art prints and rare books from Transylvania University.

Whereas The Imposter found a real-life story so outrageous it was hard to believe, he mines similar territory here with American Animals, mixing actors and their real-life counterparts into a hybrid film that blurs the lines of fictionalized storytelling and documentary filmmaking.

Though not as sharply constructed as The Imposter, Layton is a masterful filmmaker, who can accelerate or decelerate at will, leaving us constantly on edge and guessing what may come next.

The performances from the quartet of actors embodying the real-life students unfortunately plays a bit uneven, with performances feeling disjointed from one another and chemistry serving as a struggle at times. With that said, the story is so compelling and the movie so masterfully put together, we remain gobsmacked by the story American Animals tells us.